Religions are fairy tales for adults. Should we encourage them to grow up?

Right, Christians should never have worked for Caesar because he might possibly make a law we can't obey. Do you know what you are talking about?You don't get any of this at all and I don't understand why you are all so obtuse. There is no problem issuing a license for any wedding of a man and a woman. There is no problem issuing a license for any of the marches and festivals you list although they are signs of the deterioration of society and I wish they didn't exist and as a matter of fact it would be a good thing if Christians opted out of that too.But Christians aren't being asked to AGREE with those events. We're just being asked to licence a particular expression of a sin, not to accept the redefinition of a whole category of human experience clearly defined in the Bible as between a man and a woman. Those events are just sins. For the bazillionth time we are not reacting to the sin of homosexuality or even the sin of gay marriage. WE ARE OBJECTING TO BEING MADE TO VALIDATE A TRAVESTY OF AN ANCIENT INSTITUTION THAT IS DEFINED IN THE BIBLE BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN.There was a Mormon cop in Utah who asked not to have to ride his motorcycle in the gay parade and he was disciplined in some way for that, I forget the outcome. Actually, now that all this is coming up I think we have been remiss in tolerating all this creepy stuff and probably should have been protesting all of it for years. But it's still not the same direct challenge to Biblical belief as being asked to validate gay marriage. You don't get it and won't get it but that's the truth.
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No, Faith, you wouldn't want to work for Caesar--not because of any possible new law--but because new hires have to swear to uphold Caesar's laws. For someone like a town clerk, it is pretty much a condition of employment. Could you honestly swear such an oath?No one should want any faith to have a special handle on the law, perhaps least of all a devout member of another.Christians will never have exactly the laws they'd like to have; neither will Jews or Muslims or Jains or Hindus, because the law is human law. Our law. Secular law. That's the law public officials are obligated to abide by, and THAT'S religious freedom, for the rest of us.No one has a right to be town clerk. If religious scruples stop you from fulfilling your duties as outlined by the law, that, as the Army likes to say, is a personal problem.NB: Actually, that's religious freedom for all of us.Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

As long as "Caesar" was my beloved USA I would have had no problem whatever in working for my government. Yes I could swear such an oath. But not now. Perhaps I'm nave in that I would have gone on trusting my beloved USA as long as I did, that's probably true, but now the change is palpable and can't be ignored any more.You have no sense of how Christian All the Anglo countries were until very very recently, and even most of Europe in spite of their Catholic twistedness, to say what you say about how nobody would want any faith to rule. Tell you what, a "faith" IS ruling even now and gaining power every day, your "secular" law is really a religion, and you LIKE this "faith." I don't and it intends to strangle me and those who agree with me. I pray it won't succeed but if it does that will only be prophecy fulfilled and I know my Lord will win in the end. I'm sorry you are on the wrong side of this along with most others here. Really sorry about that. That's the saddest thing, that so many don't know good from evil any more.Yes things have changed so much that Christians can no longer be town clerk. No longer run a business that can be required to serve a gay marriage. Yes, this is what we've been expecting, the marginalization of the faith that built the west. Been expecting it as I've said and yet it's still a surprise, that people could be so captured by such evil. The attitude at EvC is often like a punch in the stomach. Sheer evil. Unbelievable.

Frankly, I wish you no personal distress whatsoever. Surely the apocalyptically awful nature of our evil must be some comfort. But prying religion's sanctimonious hands off the law has been a centuries long process. We're still not done.

No, there is no comfort in watching people destroy themselves and the best nation that ever existed. None whatever.Be careful what you wish for.

I'm not afraid of the future. It belongs, if we can keep it, to a reasonable sanity, not a religious vision.As to nations, ah, Faith, vanity, vanity...

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The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.

​

The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.

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I know. I'm afraid for you.

It was never said in arrogance, as the poem has it (the very false assessment that has been undermining American greatness for half a century now), and the rest of the world acknowledged it. The image of its ruin is not due so much to its own faults, though naivete and lack of vigilance might be among those, but to the work of enemies, most of them unseen.

FaithCould you help me make a moral and logic based decision.I have been told by someone that their God is unknowable and unfathomable.That someone now wants me to buy a large and expensive book where he tells me everything he and his group knows for sure about his unknowable and unfathomable God.Should I see him as a liar and not buy his book?Regards
DL

FaithGenesis 2:24Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.Is the license and ceremony of marriage important or is the consummation, becoming on flesh the important part to God?The usual gay marriage has one party assuming the male part and the other the female part. When they have sex, or consummate the marriage, are they not becoming on flesh just as a male and female do in a heterosexual marriage?Regards
DL

FaithBest nation?Check the stats and surveys and see what nations are considered the best. They are not the U.S..The U.S. is perhaps the strongest war machine, thanks to it's allies, but that is it's only claim to fame.All other social standards are deficient when compared to many other countries.If you want to see one of the better countries just look North.Regards
DL

So you have nothing against murder? It's only temporal so it doesn't matter?

It bothers you "a great deal" but not enough to actually DO anything about it? You might be wrong but you'll go ahead anyway?It doesn't matter how much things "bother" you. What matters is what you DO to avoid mistakes and correct your mistakes. The road to Hell is paved with your empty good intentions.

Remember this ringo [Revelation 20:11-15]something you can avoid .... your choice

For those who don't want to look it up, I'll quote it for you:

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Revelation 20:11-15 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

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Note that "they were judged every man according to their works".As Jesus said:

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Matthew 25:44-46 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

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It's all about what you do, not what you profess.So are you in favour of just letting murder slide? You handwave the death penalty as "temporal". Why is murder less temporal?